After a winter of pure enjoyment, waves everyday, great conditions, and plenty of time to surf, Spring came faster than we all could of imagined and soon enough the waves began to dissipate away from our home and head for southern waters. After about a week of no surf the surf starvation began to get into Mark Arico’s head and he, along with all of us here in the South Bay of Los Angeles, began to think about south swells, dreamy right hand point breaks, and warm water with nobody around. What better place to escape than Mexico!

A surfer’s dreamland during the surf starved and crowded summer months in Southern California and a perfect place to catch an early south swell. Mark Arico, owner and producer of Arico Productions, was ready to go and with the pull of the trigger, he booked the tickets. Along with Alex Gray, he invited me as well to shoot photo and video and have some time to surf myself! Alex was thrilled to go when he heard of the early season south swell headed towards Mexico’s premiere waves. Early season south swells in Mexico always mean uncrowded surf, and plenty of it! Alex, being the world traveler he is, was excited to be the only surfer on the trip. It was a rare opportunity for him to travel, get photos and video footage, and be with only us and no other pro surfers or media around. In today’s pro surfing world, surf trips have changed into instacrowd media trips. In Mexico, Alex had perfect waves to himself. A dream come true and much needed break from the frequent star studded trips he was on all year.

We went, we scored some great waves, and then headed back to Los Angeles before it even felt we were gone. We were soon back to reality but nothing quite matches the feeling of getting lost for a few days in Mexico. So let the South Swell adventures BEGIN!